​POETRY 

"And to be left alone
To sun in the shade of the shedding pepper tree."
​
                                     Photo by Weebly.com                                    

Cat and Blue Jay
by Mary Heldman

​​From atop the pepper tree
The Blue Jay cants its head,
Shrieks at the orange and white cat.
 
Frightened cat
Arches its back,
Its fur shooting up.
 
Buzz cut.
 
Scaredy cat. 
Runs backward, then crouches,
 
Deflated cat
Rests a moment yards away
Then dares to hiss at the bully bird,
Its high-in-the-air nemesis.
Its mocker extraordinaire.
Nibbler of cat’s pride.
 
Rebuked cat.
Crazed cat.
Crazy cat.
 
Blue Jay shuffles in the weeping leaves
Shrieks again at the marmalade cat.                   
Who wants but to be an ordinary
Orange and white alley cat.
 
And to be left alone
To sun in the shade of the shedding pepper tree.
 
Defeated cat.
Coward cat.
Eunuch cat.
 
Poor cat.
 
It’s always something
 
Isn’t it?

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​​​Mary Heldman is retired from a career in medical school administration, computer programming, business systems analysis and technical writing. She grew up in Los Angeles but lived in Palo Alto, Washington D.C., Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Stony Brook, New York, before settling in San Francisco in 1974. She has been taking creative writing classes at OLLI since 2014 and wishes she lived with a gregarious chocolate lab or a contemplative mutt, but doesn’t.

Other works in this issue:
Poetry:
​Ode to My Lover

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